


We were as strangers

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: 2016 Christmas Fics [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8963656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: A revelation from Ned leaves Cat with a thousand questions.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [Kaitlyn](http://eddardstark.tumblr.com/) and [Onion,](http://onionjulius.tumblr.com) via me, from [Lauren.](http://joannalannister.tumblr.com/)

Catelyn doesn’t know whether to laugh or to weep.

Weep, Lysa would say, for Lysa always wept when told a lie, even if for her own good. 

Laugh, Uncle would say, for the shadow that had been tainting her fledgling marriage was now gone, wasn’t it?

But was it truly gone, if the whole of the realm still believed her to be shamed? So far as the world knew, her husband was insisting on raising his bastard son with their trueborn heir. So far as the world knew, Cat was second to some whore her husband had used during the war!

But Ned did not hold her second to  _ any _ woman, not in that way - the love he bore for her was not even slightly the same as the love he bore the boy’s mother. How could it be, when they were not Targaryens?

“I know, my lady,” he said, appearing in the door of the beautiful little sept his men had just finished building for her, “that I have asked a great deal of you during our short time as man and wife, but I must ask one more boon.”

She didn’t look away from the Lady - she was half afraid that she might slap him if she did! - but she nodded, firm enough that he might see it.

“I must ask,” he said, “that you not reveal what I have told you even to your sister. The risk of the King finding out is too great-”

“And would bring down his vengeance on not only the boy, but on Robb,” Cat said. “I see it plainly, my lord. I would not risk any harm coming to my son, as I am sure you know.”

She jumped when he sat in the pew beside her, when he leaned forward over his knees so his face was near level with her own. 

“I know, Cat,” he said, exhausted. “Nor would I - that is why I hid the truth from you. We were as strangers, and I was afraid that you would turn to your sister, or your father.”

“We were as man and wife,” she pointed out, rising from her knees to sit beside him. “Did you think I would dishonour my vows so easily as to betray your trust?”

“No,” he admitted. “No, Cat, I didn’t, but I was so scared that I did not know what I was thinking, in truth. I had lost so much, my lady, and had no idea just what I had gained.”

That was, in Ned’s funny way, terribly sweet, but it did not erase the pain of his deceit.

“It will take a long while for me to believe in your trust again, my lord,” she said, watching him stand, accepting his outstretched hands so that she could stand with him. “And you must see that I cannot give the boy a mother’s affection, nor even that of an aunt. He is known to be  _ your _ bastard, Ned - he is known as an affront to me.”

“I know that,” Ned assured her, guiding her carefully to the end of the pew. “I do not ask that, Cat - he is not yours, not as our children are.”

It had seemed terribly important that she birth a boy with Ned’s look, until he had told her the truth of the boy’s provenance. Now, she hoped the babe in her belly, under Ned’s hand, might be a girl - she had always wanted a daughter, to spoil as her lady mother had spoiled her and Lysa.


End file.
